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South Korea Raises Alarm After North Enters DMZ

South Korea accused North Korea tonight of sending 260 heavily armed soldiers into a sensitive area of the demilitarized zone that divides North and South, creating a state of emergency along the border.

The North Korean incursion, the second in two days, reportedly began when nine truckloads of North Korean troops conducted military exercises in the joint security area at Panmunjom, a border post between the two Koreas.

The forces on the South Korean side immediately declared an emergency and made preparations to deploy additional troops, while assembling crisis-management teams to monitor the situation.

Each side is allowed only five officers and 35 enlisted personnel in the joint security area, and they are permitted to carry only sidearms. However, South Korea's Defense Ministry said that its spotters had verified that the North Korean troops carried at least five machine guns, four mortars and an 82-millimeter recoilless rifle.

No one is treating the incursions as a sign that war is imminent, and military analysts have not spotted any major North Korean troop movements or other preparations for an attack. Instead, the incident apparently marks a further effort by North Korea to undermine the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953 and that has kept the peace since then.

North Korea has long criticized the armistice, saying that it should be replaced by a peace treaty to be negotiated between Pyongyang and the United States. On Thursday, North Korea said it would stop adhering to its obligations under the armistice, and on Friday it ordered its first incursion into the joint security area, with 130 armed troops entering its section of the zone.

The border, with its tank traps, minefields and bunkers, grew a bit more tense when South Korea raised its intelligence-monitoring level on Friday to the highest status in 14 years. This means more frequent monitoring of North Korean positions, but the level of alert for troops in South Korea has not changed from its usual peacetime status.

The border is the site of the greatest concentration of hostile troops in the world. Some 37,000 American troops are based in South Korea against the possibility of attack from North Korea.

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"A series of moves recently made by North Korea completely differs from previous ones in kind, and are intentional, provocative acts according to a willful and long-term conception," President Kim Young Sam of South Korea declared in a statement issued before tonight's incursion.

President Kim also presided today over an emergency national security council meeting, the first in nearly two years, to discuss the North Korean moves.

Opposition politicians worry that it is in President Kim's interest to dramatize the problems. Parliamentary elections will be held on Thursday and Mr. Kim's party may do better if there is the perception of a national crisis that could increase desires for unity and stability.

As for North Korea, it has not been soothing either, accusing Seoul of preparing to begin an invasion of the North.

"It is self-evident that our people and People's Army cannot remain an onlooker to the situation that can be seen on the eve of war and cannot but take a countermeasure," a North Korean newspaper declared. The countermeasure it referred to was the withdrawal from obligations under the armistice.

Some experts say it may be in North Korea's interest to raise the threat of war. Most of the time, the West pays little interest to North Korea. But when the situation has seemed particularly dangerous, North Korea has sometimes managed to attract attention and negotiate agreements to its advantage.

Military experts say an outbreak of fighting is unlikely, but some intelligence analysts in the United States and South Korea are concerned that a war could start by mistake or that North Korea might launch a strike out of desperation.